Yahoo! Messenger for Vista: Preview Release Available!

It’s here! It’s really here! We’re thrilled to bring you the preview version of Yahoo! Messenger for Vista, the first Yahoo! Messenger built from the ground up for the Windows Vista operating system. This is your chance to try it out and give us your feedback to help make the next version even better.

This is a preview version only (pre-beta) so not everything is in here that you might be used to seeing in other versions of Yahoo! Messenger. Here’s a list of the features included today:

- Entirely new interface that harnesses the power of WPF, the graphics subsystem in Windows Vista
- Organize your conversations into tabs, or drag and drop a tab out to create a new window
- Keep up with your favorite contacts by dragging them into the Windows Sidebar gadget
- Send enhanced emoticons that have some extra oomph
- Change the color of your IM windows with a built-in skin chooser. Go crazy with a different skin for every IM window!

- Adjust the display size of your contacts with a handy slider
- Arrange your contact list into multiple columns just by resizing your window
- Send instant messages to your Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger contacts
- Send files to friends as large as 2 GB
- Find contacts quickly with the contact search bar. Type in a few letters of the contact’s name or ID and they’ll come up in filtered results.
- As-you-type spell checker that’s smart enough to know that “LOL” is not something to correct
- A preferences menu you can access by right-clicking anywhere at the top of the main Messenger window

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